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Attention all club members – the radio operator registrations are now open for this year’s event. Please access the registration form link e-mailed to all members via the mailing list and complete your details for 2015 as soon as possible so that checkpoint planning, accommodation and catering can all be finalized. Note: the AREG home base this year will be the Kingston on Murray Caravan Park.

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be participating in the WIA organised special event callsign activation of VI5ANZAC. The major commemoration is on the 25th April 2015, which is when Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli, marking 100 years since our nation’s involvement in WWI.

The club has secured the window from 0000UTC (9:30am CST) Friday 24th April through to 2359UTC 30th April (9:30am CST Friday 1st May) to activate the callsign. After interest was also expressed from the Elizabeth Amateur Radio club to operate portable from an RSL hall on ANZAC day, AREG has cooperated and agreed to EARC operating the callsign up until 12.00pm CST on April 25th, so that operators from both clubs can share in the experience.

The principle goal of AREG with the callsign is to contact Turkey on HF after 12:00pm CST (0230UTC) on the 25th of April (Anzac Day) as well as provide an easily reachable signal across VK/ZL (and all points in between). A large construction project is underway at one of the club members stations aimed at installing a 3 element 40m beam and 4 element 20m beam in time for the event. The AREG also intends for it’s members to activate it as often as possible from AREG members stations thereafter within the club’s operating window on HF and VHF/UHF as far as possible.

More details of AREG’s exact plans will be released closer to the event. At this stage, members are asked to contact the committee to place their details on the club roster for activating VI5ANZAC between Sunday 26th April and Friday 1st May 9:30am.

The VK5ARG activation during the CQ WPX Contest and the VK5 Parks award activation by VK5QI and VK5AKH are underway now from the Coorong National Park. The bands are jumping and the team is having lots of fun camping out under the stars.

20m is alive with activity during the contest, as can be seen from Mark’s SDR screen capture here. Not a lot of room on 20m when this was captured!

This weekend will see VK5ARG portable on the airwaves again with several intrepid members including Andy VK5AKH and Mark VK5QI planning on operating portable from the Coorong National Park, 175km SE of Adelaide.

CQ WPX Contest Activation VK5ARG

VK5ARG will be active in the the CQ WPX SSB Contest, which is based on an award offered by CQ Magazine for working as many prefixes as possible during the contest period.. Held on the last weekend of March (SSB) and May (CW), the contest draws thousands of entries from around the world.

VK5 Parks Award Simultaneous Activation

This is also the second anniversary of the VK5 Parks Activation Weekend event organised by the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society. Paul VK5PAS who has driven the VK5 Parks Award has done a sterling job and promoting HF and VHF/UHF portable operation through this initiative giving amateurs a great incentive to get out and about and see the natural wonders of our state while playing Amateur Radio.

Operators of VK5ARG this weekend will also be making contatcs under their own callsigns during the VK5 Parks Activation, so look out for Mark VK5QI/P and Andy VK5AKH/P (and others) on the bands. For more information about the VK5 Parks Award visit their website.

Antennas will be 16m tall vertical on 160-30m, inverted Vee on 40m and 2 element hex beam 20-10m. Operating Low Power as generators are not allowed in the park. Good luck in the contest and hope to see you in the log.

Journey’s End

The joint EARC, NERC and AREG activation of the Para Wirra Recreation Park for the 2015 John Moyle Memorial Field Day contest has been a roaring success. It was great to see so many people from all of the participating clubs come along and pitch in with manpower and equipment. Most of all it was clear that everyone who came along had a lot of fun and got to play a LOT of radio…

Thanks must also go to the Wireless Institute of Australia who granted access to the state WIA callsign VK5WIA for the event. It was great to unite all three clubs under the state banner.

At the end of the event, VK5WIA/P had worked a total of 1141 stations in 24 hours with the breakdown band by band standing at:

160m: 5

80m: 92

40m: 564

20m: 319

15m: 148

10m: 13

We now look forward to submitting our logs and seeing how we went.

Thanks Everyone

A big thank you to the contest “master”, Andrew VK5AKH, who rallied all of the equipment and man power from many sources across both clubs into a cohesive station, along with help from many others. Thanks also to all of the band captains, operators, support crew and catering crew for making the event special. A special thanks also to the rangers from the Parra Wirra Recreation Park who gave us special permission to remain in the park after hours to operate the station.

More Images

Finally, here are some more images from VK5WIA. We have created a photo gallery of the event on the AREG website. Check it out here!

Grant VK5GR has also created one last time lapse sequence to inspire us for next year!

Final Reminder

If you worked us more than 5 times, please make sure you also submit a log to the contest manager. This is a new rule for this year and it will help verify our repeat contacts.

The AREG/EARC/NERC portable activation of VK5WIA for the John Moyle Field Day Contest is now well and truly up and running. We have had over 20 operators so far driving the 4 stations and at the 11 hour mark we are over 500 contacts already.